My list of reasons why BlackBerry 10 is better than Android

I am making this thread in order to create a list of advantages BlackBerry 10 has over Android. My comparison is mainly going to be a software comparison rather than comparing the hardware involved.

I am also planning on creating a list of advantages BlackBerry 10 has over iOS and will put a link here once it has been posted.

I recently started playing around with two different Android smartphones. They are the: Zest T1, a dual-SIM phone with Android KitKat installed. This one uses stock AndroidSony Xperia Z, Sonys flagship smartphone of early 2013. This one is rooted and has Cyanogenmod 10.2.1 installed (essentially Android Jellybean 4.3).
My sister and one brother also has the Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini which I have had a bit of time to use. This list was mainly written through noting the differences between all of these Androids and my BlackBerry Z10.

After getting first-hand experience with Android, I will say that though Android is a nice OS, BlackBerry 10 is the better one for my uses and I would argue that it is also the better OS for the majority of those using or planning to use a smartphone. I really dont believe that the average smartphone user needs most of the things that Android does better than BlackBerry 10 (every app that requires root access to the phone, for example). As a result, I have decided that the BlackBerry Z30 is the best phone for me and I have just started using the one that I ordered.

The one rule in this comparison is that the ability to install apps to resolve some of these problems will not be regarded as an acceptable compromise (and yes, I will admit that Android has a better app market than BB10, though BB10s Android runtime means that it isnt as bad as one might think). There are five main reasons for this:

Most Android users will not install the apps required to solve these problems. For example, one could argue that the screenshot problem in versions of Android older than 4.0 can be solved by installing the right app. However, I bet that 99% of affected Android users will not install these apps and so the problem will not be resolved for them.

A feature being integrated into the OS itself will usually work better than solutions that require installing an app.

BB10 has an Android runtime. How do you know that the Android app in question cant run on a BlackBerry 10 device?

It creates a lopsided argument. Im certain that most Android users would not allow the availability of an app to be used as a rebuttal for BB10s disadvantages.

If a particular important app is available for Android but not BB10 (and the Android runtime cant run the app), what exactly is preventing that app from being available on BB10? Is there a technical problem with the OS itself? Does the apps developer simply not feel like making the app available on BB10?

I should also note that I am comparing BB10 against Vanilla Android except when I mention otherwise, which will be Cyanogenmod for the most part. In particular, I cant make a comparison against Samsungs Touchwiz-modded Android as I havent had the time to make an in-depth comparison. Most of these points should be accurate, though I will appreciate it if someone familiar with Touchwiz could point out where my noted disadvantages dont apply to Touchwiz and possibly if BB10 has any advantages over Touchwiz that it doesnt have over Vanilla Android.

More secure

This point can be summarised as so: BlackBerry is a company whos business revolves around privacy and secure communication. Google is a company whos business revolves around data-mining and advertising. Guess which one is more likely to make a secure phone.

BB10 doesnt have a malware problem like Android does. Whether this is due to BB10s marketshare or whether it is because BB10 is inherently more secure is anyones guess but the fact remains that Android has a problem with malware (eg. Fake ID, which affects every version of Android currently in use up to KitKat, where it was patched).

Android has a massive fragmentation problem caused by OEMs not releasing updates to the latest version of Android for some of their phones, carriers not pushing those updates to its customers and consumers holding onto old devices. As a result, Androids version distribution currently (Aug 2014) stands at ~8% for KitKat (Nov 2013), ~61% for the 3 Jellybean versions (Jul 2012, Nov 2012 & Jul 2013) (with ~57% of that portion being on 3.1), ~13,8% on ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) (Oct 2011) and even ~16% on Gingerbread (Feb 2011). This kind of fragmentation means that if a security vulnerability is found and Google patches it, the chances are that most Android users will not get that patch until months or even years later (remember that Fake ID bug I mentioned above?). And these are devices that our personal life is stored on!

For interests sake, BlackBerrys figures for the adoption rates of BB10 are: ~74% are on 10.2.1, ~6% on 10.2, ~15% on 10.1 and ~5% on 10.0. These figures are not too far behind Apple, who has ~90% of iOS users on v7 and ~9% on v6. This is with Apples advantage of not needing carrier approval for their updates.

Google may have infringed Oracles IP

Google in developing Android implemented some of the APIs present in Oracles Java and Oracle believes that this amounts to patent infringement. The most recent news on this matter is that the USAs Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that Javas APIs can be patented and ruled that it must now be determined whether Googles implementation qualifies as fair use. Suffice to say, if Oracle wins this case against Google, it could very well affect the future usability of Android by, for example, Google being forced to remove the infringing APIs.

BB10 uses a microkernel whereas Android uses a monolithic kernel.

Though a microkernel isnt superior to a monolithic kernel in every single way (and I think monolithic kernels do have their advantages), it does lead to some nice advantages which I mention in the later points. It is also interesting to note that when Microsoft switched from the Windows 9x architecture to the Windows NT architecture, they also changed from a monolithic kernel to a hybrid kernel (in between micro- and monolithic).

OS and hardware by same company

The main advantage here is in terms of OS patches, as elaborated below.

Another possible advantage is that BlackBerry 10 updates can be more easily targeted towards a specific device in their portfolio thanks to them knowing the inner working of both the hardware and software whereas Android is built by Google, possibly designed towards being optimised for their Nexus devices and then the OEMs have to take whatever Google provides them and make it work on their hardware. BB10s microkernel architecture vs Androids monolithic kernel architecture may also be a factor in this, where the drivers and files specific to a particular device can be kept separate from the rest of the OS in a microkernel whereas those same files in a monolithic kernel are part of the kernel and might not be as easy to keep separate.

1st party process for BB10 is that BlackBerry compiles and finalises a version of BB10 that they feel is release ready, add the various drivers required for the phones they want to release an update for then submit this update to the carriers who then approve the update and make it available for their customers.

1st party process for Android is that Google compiles and finalises a version of Android that they feel is release ready. They then add the drivers for the Nexus devices they feel needs the update and release this update to carriers and releases the source code for the latest version. The other hardware OEMs then take the source code, add in whatever modifications they feel are required, compile in the drivers required for whichever devices they feel deserve the update then release the update to carriers for approval. Additionally, the OEMs might decide that one of their modifications needs to be updated. They would then have to implement this update for every device they want to receive it and might have to release it for carrier approval as well.

As you can see, unless you buy a Nexus device (and Play edition devices?) (which the majority of Android users dont), Android has a lot more middle men and complexities involved in its update process than BB10.

The advantage for non-flagship devices is that BlackBerry, thus far at least (though I do note that all devices that are not the Passport will be skipping the 10.3 update and will only be updated when 10.3.1 rolls out), have all received updates from BlackBerry simultaneously, from flagship to budget. Android OEMs and 3rd party Android developers tend to, I have noticed, favour the flagship and most popular devices. Non-flagship devices, especially those of less popular manufacturers, tend to get less attention from those who release Android distributions and updates. One example of this is the fact that my brother and sister have a phone that is stuck on Ice Cream Sandwich, simply because Samsung decided that they would rather release the S4 Mini than support their existing budget customers.

The 3rd party update process for Android involves unlocking the devices bootloader then downloading and installing a ROM with the version of Android you are looking for.

The 3rd party update process for BB10, OTOH, simply requires downloading Sachesi onto your PC, asking it to download the latest update then asking it to install that update onto your phone.

I would say that BB10s 3rd party method is not only easier but it also works equally well for all BB10 devices whereas Androids method favours the flagship and more popular devices. If you have no way of unlocking the bootloader, you are stuck. If no one has made the required version of Android available for your device, you are once again stuck.

BlackBerry has also demonstrated that they are able to update components of the core OS through BB World. These updates also didnt need the phone to be restarted, which I believe is another advantage which is due to BB10s microkernel. It is very much possible to replace portions of the OS itself with the only interrruption being to processes that directly depend on the part being replaced. I suspect that the main reason they dont do this on a larger scale is because they had to make a deal with the carriers of the world. Otherwise, they could very easily make it so that carriers only have to approve of the components that they need to test and distribute the rest through BB World.

??Android does not completely wipe personal data from phone.??

Does BB10s factory reset wipe personal data?

Default keyboard

BB10s software keyboard is vastly superior to the keyboard that Google put in Android, in both looks and usability. This is not surprising though, since BlackBerry licensed the use of SwiftKey, made it better then put it into all of their full-touchscreen devices whereas Swiftkey is merely an app on Android. Then there is also the fact that BlackBerry is the only one releasing high-end smartphones with physical keyboards, if that is your preference.

Some of the advantages of BB10s software keyboard include:

Better word prediction that predicts the next word you are going to type before you start typing.

More than 3 predicted words are immediately accessible.

Delete whole words by swiping across the keyboard from right to left. You can use one, two or three fingers to delete one, two or three words to the left of the cursor, respectively.

The main thing I wish BlackBerry would implement is the choice of a swiping keyboard (i.e. swipe your finger from one letter to the next to form words) as it is faster than tapping for commonly used words.

Control permissions allocated to apps (Android instead requires that you accept everything)

Doesnt really need an explanation. BB10 allows you to change the permissions allocated to an app and control what parts of a phone it is allowed to access, either while installing the app or afterwards through the relevant configuration page.

Android does not allow either of the above. Any app you install gets whatever OS access the apps developer told Google it needs and you have no choice in the matter. Furthermore, it seems that Android Jellybean actually had a configuration page for adjusting permissions assigned to an app but this page was hidden and the only way to access it was by installing an app that provides this access. This configuration page, however, only allows you to tweak permissions after the app has been installed, not on the pane that requests the various permissions from you when first installing the app.

KitKat finally added a GUI for denying individual permissions to apps. It only works after the app has been installed if you look for the configuration page though, not while installing the app.

...and then the 4.4.2 update removed this ability from the OS entirely. Google excuse is that the feature was experimental and might break some apps and that releasing the feature was an accident.

BB Hub and flow

BB10 is a gesture based OS whereas Android is more button based. This, IMHO, makes BB10 easier to use and gives you more control over what the OS is doing. This what labelled by ex-CEO Thorstein Heins as flow, and I do agree. It does feel like everything flows on BB10 whereas I dont get that feeling on Android. It just feels like Im jumping from one place to another.

The main example of this is the BB Hub. It is a page on the phone which collates every message from every service and app into one place. And it is always accessible from anywhere on your phone with one L-shaped gesture. Furthermore, if you only partially complete this gesture, you can instead see just a summary of the number of unread messages in the Hub and even peek at the Hubs contents before returning to what you were doing.

Android doesnt do this. To do any messaging, you must minimize whatever youre doing and jump to the app that controls the messaging you want to do. You would then leave that messaging app then re-open what you were doing before. A summary of the number of unread messages can only be gained in Android by opening the notifications drawer, if you didnt already remove them that is.

You can even use the Hub to send messages using whatever messaging service you have on the phone (even social networking services can be used from the Hub). Android requires that you open the app you need before you can send messages.

This is my attempt to describe how the Hub is much better than how Android does messaging but I feel that it still doesnt capture the essence of it. I would appreciate it if other BB10 users could tell me how I can improve the description of the BB Hub. For now, though, all I can suggest is that you look for some videos of the Hub in action.

Android doesnt utilise the CPU as efficiently as BB10

This point is pretty ironic because previously the obsolete and discontinued BBOS was the OS that utilised the phones CPU inefficiently vs. Android when it was still being used. The tables have turned though and now BlackBerry is the one with the more efficient OS thanks to BB10.

This has been particularly noticeable for me in comparing my Z10 to the two Androids I played with. Though I did have some performance issues occasionally with my Z10, the Sony and Zest take this to a new level despite having measurably superior CPUs (quad-cores at 1.5GHz and 1.3GHz, respectively, vs. the Z10s 1.5GHz dual-core). Ive observed things from the UI stuttering when things animate all the way up to the keyboard taking up to 5 seconds just to show up when I need to type something.

An Android user might counter that more recent Androids have better CPUs that are clocked to 2GHz and beyond. My response is that this only hides the performance issues rather than solving them. A BB10 device could be released with those same CPUs and the result would be performance that is even better than it currently is (that being better than Android).

Even Rene Ritchie complained about Androids performance when he stated why he regards iOS as better than Android and on another occasion, quoted one of Androids engineers when he discussed Androids UI performance problems. And this is vs. iPhones whose CPU situation is very similar to BB10s.

This is probably why every major version of Android since ICS has made improved performance in some regard one of the main features of that release, including L. I just have to ask why it took Google this long to take performance seriously?

Considering how many Android fans use quad-core CPUs as an argument for Android, I think this point is a particularly important one for BB fans to memorize.

Superior file manager

BB10s file manager has a richer interface, card-based UI like the rest of the OS (imagine opening a folder to be like placing a card on top of a deck), access Box, Dropbox, OneDrive and any PC you have BlackBerry Link installed on.

Androids file manager is pretty basic in comparison.

Superior multitasking

BB10 places apps in an Active Frames pane when they are minimised, where they remain until closed or maximised. While in an active frame, the app can still display whatever information the app developer dictates.

When apps are minimised on Android, they are placed in the background and hidden from sight. They cant display any information while minimised unless the app provide a widget that the user has added to their homescreen. Maximising the app again requires that you either locate and tap its icon or open the task switching pane (by holding down the home button) and tap the relevant app.

Cyanogenmod has an option to add a separate button specifically for opening the task switching pane. I believe it is enabled by default (at least on my Sony) but I dont think the majority of Androids OEMs have something like this.

Toast notifications allow instant access to recently received messages and can even reply to a BBM or SMS without leaving current app.

BB10 notifies you of new messages via a flag that appears at the top of the screen for a few seconds that gives you a summary of the messages type, sender and possibly the subject line or first few words of the message. For Android, you have to pull down the notification pane to get this info (and most of this is hidden if you have more than one unread message from a particular app). Furthermore, the notification flag on BB10 allows you to reply to the message without leaving the app youre currently using if the message is a BBM or SMS.

Android requires that you leave the app you are currently using and open the app with the new message to reply, then close/minimize that messaging app and re-open the app you were using to get back to what you were doing before.

Future rumoured feature: Access the message Hub, Calender, Contacts and File Manager of your phone from a PC or laptop.

A rumoured upcoming feature in BB v10.3 is that a new Fuse mode will allow users to access Fuse enabled apps remotely from a PC or laptop. Currently, BBs message Hub, Calender, Contacts and File Manager are Fuse enabled in the latest 10.3 leak. BlackBerry has not announced anything about this yet though and the features and mechanisms could easily change or even be dropped between now and 10.3s release. There is also a rumour that this will be a BES-only feature.

Android doesnt have anything like this built in or planned.

Unified screenshot method on BB10

All BlackBerry 10 devices allow you to take a screenshot by single-presssing the two volume buttons at once.

Android, however, is a very mixed bag. Ive seen no less than 6 different methods:

Hold power and volume-down buttons for a second

Take screenshot in the power menu (menu that appears when power button is held down)

Hold power and home buttons at once for a second

Swipe hand over the screen

Dedicated screenshot button

Versions older than ICS dont have this functionality at all

Notification and volume options are more centralised on B10 than Android.

On BB10, notification and volume options are all in one place. Phone calls, SMSs, BBM, emails, 3rd party apps, etc.

Android does not do this. Instead the phone call, alarm, notification and miscellaneous sounds options are located under Settings. All other sounds and volumes, such as BBM and Whatsapp, are located as options in the relevant apps. I personally find this a bit confusing and less convenient vs. BB10s way of doing it.

More custom notifications per contact

BB10 allows you to customize the ringtone, vibration and LED options for phone calls, emails, SMS, BBM, etc. for each contact in your phone book. These options are found under the Notification options.

Android only allows customizing the ringtone for each contact. This option is found in the People app.

Android makes accessing the quick menu more difficult than BB10

The problem with Android in this regard is that the notifications panel and the quick settings are both in the same place (i.e. swiping down from the top edge). Cyanogenmod solves this problem by dividing the screen into two halves. Swiping down in the left half opens the notifications pane while swiping down in the right half opens the quick settings pane. The base version of Android and any other versions that dont change this functionality instead require you to swipe down to open the notifications pane then tap a button in the top-right corner of the screen to open the quick menu.

From what I've seen, Samsung's Touchwiz appears to combine the notifications pane and quick settings into one pane.

BB10 is less complicated; swipe down for the quick menu and the swipe up L-gesture for notifications and messages.

No practical way of switching off phone without touching screen

BB10 allows you to switch off the device by holding the power button for 4 seconds (pretty much like nearly every other device in the world).

Android requires that you hold the power button for one second, select Power off in the menu that appears then select Ok in the menu that appears. Simply holding the power button down like you would with any other device will not switch an Android off.

No way of locating phone without installing an app

BlackBerry Protect allows you to locate and remotely control a BB10 device if you need to.

Androids dont have anything like this built in.

Googles Android Device Manager adds this ability to Androids but it is an app that you need to download from the Play store.

No CPU usage monitor

BB10 offers a CPU monitor through their Device Monitor app that shows which apps and processes are consuming how much of the CPUs cycles, both currently and historically.

Android doesnt offer anything like this. The closest you can get is using the battery monitor to see which apps and processes have used the most power, which might indicate a high CPU usage.

Though there are apps for Android that offer a CPU monitor, I have found that the widget types at least use a notable portion of your CPU in order to run its widget. Suffice to say, apps that cause a constant drain on your battery should be avoided if possible.

Less chance of becoming a raving fanboi who takes pleasure in tormenting other people for their phone choices

Probably the most subjective reason here but I believe that Ive noticed a trend. Whie I do agree that BlackBerry has its fans and fanbois as well (and I do label myself as a fan), I believe that Android fanbois have a different dynamic to BB fanbois which makes the former a lot more annoying.

I find that the BB fanboi tends to keep things to themselves until someone says something they dont like about BlackBerry. The Android fanboi is more likely to go out and cause problems (e.g. by making negative comments about a competing smartphone brand, usually in discussions about that specific brand).

BB fanbois tend to use facts and links to articles backing up their point of view when posting about BlackBerry. Though there are some who use insults and illogical banter, this is generally in response to the same being dished out against BlackBerry. Android fanbois, OTOH, tend to simply use insulting language, logical fallacies and outright fiction when making comments about BlackBerry (eg. C***berries are outdated ****, BlackBerrys stutter, freeze and crash all the time, you need to do a battery pull once a day, etc.).

My brother became one of these people for a time. After getting his Samsung, he constantly insulted my phone choice, made up problems I was supposedly having and constantly insisted that I switch to Android, even though he could never name a reason why my Z10 was an inferior choice to his Samsung (ironically, I could have given him a few reasons myself, then explained why they were irrelevant). He has ceased this behaviour nowadays; but I suspect that its only because I started using this point as an advantage for BB10.

BB users are more generous to app developers

The few statistics I have seen on this seems to indicate that BlackBerry users spend more on apps than anyone else whereas Android users spend the least on apps. This is probably why Android apps seem to be more likely to have adverts in them than BB10 apps; because app developers have to release the app for free to get it into users hands and then get their money through advertising. The main reason people are more likely to develop for Android though is because what a developer loses in individual sales, they make up in volume.

BlackBerry shows more gratitude to its users than Android OEMs (especially Samsung)

Since getting a Z10 in June 2013, BlackBerry has not only done their best to ensure that I get the latest version of their OS, they have also on at least 3 occasions given me premium apps for free.

Samsung, however, appear to just give you lip service in comparison. My brother and sister bought their Galaxy S3 Mini only a few months after I get my Z10. They have received no updates, no premium apps, nothing. Samsung gave them a phone and that was the end of it.

Not on its way to becoming a monopoly

Android currently controls around 80% of the smartphone market. I have no doubt that Google doesn't want to just crush the little people but also wants Apples share of the remaining 20% and I think Google may have it in their power to achieve this. Suffice to say, monopolies are never a good thing; they stifle innovation and promote excessive prices for the service and goods received; just look at fixed line broadband as an example of this (USA and South African citizens, at least). BlackBerry needs to succeed to help ensure that innovation remains well and good in the smartphone market.

No/less personal information sent to Google

Pretty self explanatory. Google is in the business of data mining. An OS controlled by Google will leak a lot more personal information to Google than an OS controlled by BlackBerry.

Google clearly doesnt like SD cards. There are three indications of this:

None of the Nexus devices include an SD card reader and Googles excuses for this are mostly bogus:

OEMs partition the device storage so that users run out of space for apps while still having space for music: They should simply require that if their OEMs create multiple partitions on their device, only one is allowed to be user accessible (i.e. there is only one space available to store media and app data) and the rest must be system partitions. Besides, my Zest T1 has the exact problem Dan Morrill describes without SD cards coming into the picture.

FAT32 is inferior to EXT3/4: I do agree with the foundation of this point, though I dont agree that it constitutes a reason to remove SD card readers. ECC (Error Correction and Control) and permissions can technically be implemented at the OS level rather than the file system level. This might slow things down a bit but SD cards were never intended to be on equal footing with the flash memory on the phones PCB. Google simply chose the easier-but-less-convenient-for-end-users solution.

PCs get proxy access to a file system rather than block level: You dont need to remove SD cards to implement this. BB10 has no problem giving a PC proxy access to its SD card.

In one of the Android Honeycomb 3.x versions, Google introduced a feature where Apps that are not provided by either Google or the phones manufacturer will not be granted permission to access SD cards or USB storage outside their own personal folders. Every version since including KitKat has included this feature. Some distributions such as Cyanogenmod and Samsungs versions of Android decided to remove this feature.

With the release of KitKat, Google made adherence to the above restriction for SD cards a requirement for all OEMs (such as Zest Mobile, the developer of my Zest T1). And Googles excuse is bogus once again. The onus is on developers such as Whatsapp to store personal data in a secure format, not on Google to cripple storage devices in order to cover their (Whatapp et al.) mistakes.

I would encourage anyone who wishes to debate BB10s advantages vs. Android to bookmark this thread and use it whenever needed.
If anyone has suggestions, additional advantages, criticisms or just want to say something, please leave a post.

I haven't made 10 posts on this forum yet. This, unfortunately, means that all the links I used to back up my points had to be removed in order to post this thread. I'll add them in when I reach 10 posts.

This point can be summarised as so: BlackBerry is a company who’s business revolves around privacy and secure communication. Google is a company who’s business revolves around data-mining and advertising. Guess which one is more likely to make a secure phone.
BB10 doesn’t have a malware problem like Android does. Whether this is due to BB10’s marketshare or whether it is because BB10 is inherently more secure is anyone’s guess but the fact remains that Android has a problem with malware (eg. Fake ID, which affects every version of Android currently in use up to KitKat, where it was patched).
Android has a massive fragmentation problem caused by OEMs not releasing updates to the latest version of Android for some of their phones, carriers not pushing those updates to it’s customers and consumers holding onto old devices. As a result, Android’s version distribution currently (Aug 2014) stands at ~8% for KitKat (Nov 2013), ~61% for the 3 Jellybean versions (Jul 2012, Nov 2012 & Jul 2013) (with ~57% of that portion being on 3.1), ~13,8% on ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) (Oct 2011) and even ~16% on Gingerbread (Feb 2011). This kind of fragmentation means that if a security vulnerability is found and Google patches it, the chances are that most Android users will not get that patch until months or even years later (remember that Fake ID bug I mentioned above?). And these are devices that our personal life is stored on!
For interest’s sake, BlackBerry’s figures for the adoption rates of BB10 are: ~74% are on 10.2.1, ~6% on 10.2, ~15% on 10.1 and ~5% on 10.0. These figures are not too far behind Apple, who has ~90% of iOS users on v7 and ~9% on v6. This is with Apple’s advantage of not needing carrier approval for their updates.

I really liked your entire post. But the information quoted above is most important to me and I think you hit the nail on the head. Thanks for a very informative post that I think all android fans should read and understand.

Wauu. Congratulate you on you effort to investigate the subject in all these details. References are missing but the explanation why is understandable (it's easy to make10 posts so hurry up ).
If you provide good references, this can be almost a report of genuine research.
Good work!

One thing more: The title. I don't think the title is good. To claim that something is 'better ' you would need a common frame of reference and established desirable goal that needs to be achieved. The title like this only gives emotional (arbitrary) sensation of what's coming which is flammable . But! this will considerably increase the number of post views.

One thing more: The title. I don't think the title is good. To claim that something is 'better ' you would need a common frame of reference and established desirable goal that needs to be achieved. The title like this only gives emotional (arbitrary) sensation of what's coming which is flammable . But! this will considerably increase the number of post views.

Posted via CB10

The title is fine, the first words are MY list. .. which implies it's his reasons why BlackBerry IS better than android for him (and me too)

I didn't read any of it but I can tell from the number of words that the proof is definitely there. I doubt Android users can come up with as many words to describe why Android is better, however, if they did then I'm sure you would be able to come up with even more words. The more words the better and you've made a lot of them here.

I think you are just getting started with this. I would recommend you make a bunch of copies and stand outside your local carrier store handing them out. You know most of the people going in there are coming out with Androids. They need to see your words and read them before they go in. What were they thinking, going into a store to buy something without doing the proper research?

I didn't read any of it but I can tell from the number of words that the proof is definitely there. I doubt Android users can come up with as many words to describe why Android is better, however, if they did then I'm sure you would be able to come up with even more words. The more words the better and you've made a lot of them here.

I think you are just getting started with this. I would recommend you make a bunch of copies and stand outside your local carrier store handing them out. You know most of the people going in there are coming out with Androids. They need to see your words and read them before they go in. What were they thinking, going into a store to buy something without doing the proper research?

Control permissions allocated to apps (Android instead requires that you accept everything)
[LIST][*]Doesnt really need an explanation. BB10 allows you to change the permissions allocated to an app and control what parts of a phone it is allowed to access, either while installing the app or afterwards through the relevant configuration page. [*]Android does not allow either of the above. Any app you install gets whatever OS access the apps developer told Google it needs and you have no choice in the matter. Furthermore, it seems that Android Jellybean actually had a configuration page for adjusting permissions assigned to an app but this page was hidden and the only way to access it was by installing an app that provides this access. This configuration page, however, only allows you to tweak permissions after the app has been installed, not on the pane that requests the various permissions from you when first installing the app.
[LIST][*]KitKat finally added a GUI for denying individual permissions to apps. It only works after the app has been installed if you look for the configuration page though, not while installing the app.

...and then the 4.4.2 update removed this ability from the OS entirely. Google excuse is that the feature was experimental and might break some apps and that releasing the feature was an accident.

This one is pretty huge IMO. It's just good manners in real life and in software. I don't mind if you want access to my front facing camera to spy on me when you so desire. Just ask first.

The title is fine, the first words are MY list. .. which implies it's his reasons why BlackBerry IS better than android for him (and me too)

Posted via CB10

You're right. But my argument is that text is more than just what is implied by the title. It's also true that at the beginning OP claims BB10 is the best for his needs. But when you continue to read you find out real, comparable facts, evidence, measures and measurements (though references are still missing). You can start educated discussion with this, nothing like 'My phone can beat yours' or 'X phones outnumbers Y phones' type of arguments.
Also the privilege to chose: to be able to chose freely you have to have as much info as possible - better to have testable evidence and facts then just other people's opinions or believes or to trust ads . This text can provide that to anyone who is in doubt what he or she needs.
By the way my phone is BlackBerry 10 but I don't think it's better because I use it. Also I don't use it because it's better, but because it serves my needs best (so far). Just like you

Great post with lots of thought - nice to see some genuine understanding of the subject and the clearly stated boundaries of the research. I disagree with some of it where the conclusions are to some extent opinion based with an inherent preference for BB, but this is quite the piece of work. Nice job.

I only read 1/10th of the post. I have a few counterpoints to add to the discussion. I'll add more after I read the rest of your post.

Blackberry 10 is proprietary software, which means that you don't know exactly what you are getting. They could be backdoors built in and other spyware but we may never know due to the fact that the source code is property of Blackberry. At least with Vanilla Android(i.e cyanogenmod) you know exactly what you are getting with the OS since it's open source. Also the the BB10 is very young, which means there could be security holes that could easily be exploited. But since the market share is so low, exploiters do not even target the platform. However, like you said BB10 has more security measures compared to Android.
Blackberry has a fragmentation problem as well. Not everyone is running the latest version due to carriers not releasing updates. Of course Android fragmentation will be worse since it's more widely adopted.
Micro kernels becomes a relevant topic when we dive in to embedded systems and mission critical applications. For full blown operating systems Micro kernels can be hard to work with, which is why monolithic and hybrids have done better in personal computing arena.

Blackberry has a fragmentation problem as well. Not everyone is running the latest version due to carriers not releasing updates. Of course Android fragmentation will be worse since it's more widely adopted.

It's worse on Android because if you are running the stock ROM (which most people probably are,) not only does the update need to be from your carrier, it also needs to be for your phone's specific variant. So, say you have the Wind Mobile variant of a phone on TMO, your stock ROM is WIND, and not TMO. So good luck getting updates.

At least with BB the OSes are largely model ambivalent. I say 'largely' because there is the black sheep STL100-1. But otherwise, I can install any carrier's Q10 OS on any Q10, or any autoloader, etc.

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